Yahoo’s Re-Organization: Search Stays Alive, At Least On Paper

Following last week’s layoffs of about 2,000 employees, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson announced today an overhaul of the company’s structure — and, despite concerns about the future of Yahoo search, it remains alive. At least in the memo that Thompson sent to Yahoo employees this morning.

Yahoo’s new corporate structure will take effect on May 1st and have three primary divisions:

• Consumer – this will have three units: Media, Connections and Commerce
• Regions – this is the division that serves Yahoo advertisers and is “accountable for all Yahoo revenue”
• Technology – the infrastructure and platform division

AllThingsD has posted the full text of Thompson’s memo, which lists Yahoo’s search product as part of the “Connections” unit in the Consumer division:

Connections will be led by Shashi Seth, and include consumer businesses that connect and inform our users including Search, Communications and Social properties such as Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Answers, and more. The highest priority for Shashi and his team will be to think well beyond how users search, communicate and share online today. The Connections team is charged with fundamentally re-imagining how we design and deliver the next generation of these foundational Yahoo! experiences.

There were reports in recent weeks that Yahoo was at least considering ways to get rid of its search business altogether, a business that — quite remarkably — still has about 1,800 employees (according to a recent Reuters article that cited an unnamed Yahoo executive).

Thompson’s memo at least gives temporary reprieve to that group of Yahoo search employees. But given the company’s ongoing troubles, the layoffs and the fact that Yahoo doesn’t have its own search engine anymore, Yahoo Search may be alive on paper, but there’s no guarantee it’ll live a long life.